The ICRC distributes relief food and essential household items to thousands of people displaced by fighting or affected by drought in central and southern Somalia, trucks water daily to hundreds of thousands more and rehabilitates water points in a number of regions.

To help restore or improve livelihoods, the ICRC provides thousands of families with staple crop and vegetable seed, as well as food to help them bridge the gap until the next harvest.

The organization supports 34 SRCS primary health care and mother-and-child clinics serving over 500,000 people countrywide. Two ICRC-supported surgical referral hospitals in Mogadishu offer much-needed medical care to the rising number of conflict victims and attend to other surgical emergencies. In 2008 the hospitals performed over 8,550 operations, 2,800 of them on people injured during armed clashes.

Helping family members separated by conflict restore and maintain contact through the Red Cross message (RCM) service is a priority for the ICRC, which assists the SRCS in collecting and distributing RCMs, and tracing people reported missing by their families. Most RCMs are from or to people outside Somalia – for instance the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The SRCS receives substantial structural support.

In Mogadishu, Bay and Middle Shabelle regions, the organization uses daily radio broadcasts to promote international humanitarian law.

The ICRC arrived in Somalia in 1977 to assist victims of the Ethiopia - Somalia war. Permanently present in Somalia since 1982, it began operating from its delegation in Nairobi in 1994.

Presence 2009: 53 staff, including 15 expatriates


For those seeking their lost relatives see FamilyLinks web site